


Not My Friend.

by Ixdigo



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: (lowkey) Doki Doki Literature Club References, Alt Title: Eduardo Is Suffering., Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Social Media, Blood and Violence, Changing Character P.O.V's, Chap. 4 Is Where The True Action Starts., Comedy (a little bit), Comment I love those tbh--, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Heavy Angst, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Investigations, M/M, Memories, Murder Mystery, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Psychological Horror, References to Drugs, Slow Build, Suspense, Unfriended! AU, Yandere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ixdigo/pseuds/Ixdigo
Summary: "No, but seriously, click it. It's kinda weird." Matthew suggests, and Edd could already see this was gonna go far, but he didn't ignore what Matt had said and went through with this.As if this shit wasn't weird enough.[Next Update: 2.23.18]





	1. Whose "Tord"?

**Author's Note:**

> Saw a video with Tord in the edited trailer, this was soon born months later.
> 
> Whalp, I created this from the depths of my mind, plus wanting to differentiate (a lot) from the canon movie (despite not having seen much of it--) Because of this, there are gonna be a couple twists different from the original.
> 
>  
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING:**  
> 
> 
>   * Implied/Referenced Suicide  
> 
>   * Horror Aspects  
> 
>   * Mild violence/gore
>   * Implied Insanity.
> 

> 
> ~~Your possible favorites dying.~~ >> Yeah your favs are gonna die.  
>  _Or do they...?_

He arched an eyebrow as he kept his wavering glance locked on the computer screen before him. After spotting the time, and specifically, the date located on the bottom-left screen, his previous crowded thoughts about the essay he had to knock out the park tomorrow, had came down to a halt after he blinked and took note of what this was.

 

August 25th, 2018.

 

 _Has it actually been that long?_ He queried mentally, he hadn't figured this was gonna scrape by his mind again, or why this was all coming back to him now. Usually, he would of blocked it out, and never glanced back, not just because of the mild trauma it brun. But also because of how it toiled with everybody, and he couldn't deal with the drama of that anymore.

 

_**FreckledBeauty is typing...**_

 

He shook his head a little, totally wasn't gonna divulge in all that right now, wasn't worth coming back to from the start.

 

**FreckledBeauty: yo yo ell.**

 

**SocialCola: edd.**

 

**SocialCola: bruh quit getting me and my cousin's names mixed up**

 

**FreckledBeauty: I AM SORRY**

 

**FreckledBeauty: your names are just too damn similar.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: and I have that tendency.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: i forget sometimes--**

 

**SocialCola: okie okie I'mjokinlol _._**

 

**FreckledBeauty: >;((((( LMAO**

 

**FreckledBeauty: so you wanna call or not.**

 

**SocialCola: is that how you ask someone on a date. cuz. Dinner and a movie first tho.**

 

The instant reaction of Matthew typing back rapidly was priceless, the male chuckled a bit and typed something quickly.

 

**SocialCola: Just kidding again LOL and sure.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: why you such a troll hgfdrgnh**

**SocialCola: #thuglife**

 

**_SocialCola is calling._ **

 

"It was either me skyping Tom or dealing with you," Matthew insists, "SocialCola" or Edd, didn't hold back giggling once that was mentioned. "That's a lie."

 

"Sort of, I mean, he wouldn't be up around this time anyways." Matthew replies straight-afterwards, Edd nodding as his sole response. "How are you, recently?"

 

"Good so far, silently hoping this 2000-word essay on WWI soon won't kick my ass. But. That's not an issue." Edd responded, shrugging his shoulders slightly through the course of his sentence. Matthew's baby blue eyes widened at the thought.

 

" _2000 words?_ The most I can do is, like, 500?" The ginger replied, "Crap. I feel for you. Try not to suffer  _too_ much." Matthew insisted.

"Heh, sure thing Matt. How are you doing..?"

"A lot better than two days ago, rough sleep can do rough things to a guy."

"No kidding, you were so cranky and tired that day, I thought I was gonna have to sink Laurel and Card to help you there."

"Nah, that wouldn't of been necessary, guess all I needed was some macarons and a nap during lunch period!"

"Still don't get how that satisfied you for the rest of the school-day." Edd muttered, scribbling down inside his essay for a little whilst keeping his glance on Matthew, who ran a hand through his hair for a minute and chuckling a little bit. Edd didn't mind casual and digital conversations like this. This wasn't abnormal for him, considering this was the same things he had with his older and close cousin.

Matthew huffed a little bit and thought about what he said a little more, "Hm. Don't know. Maybe I'm just normally energetic like that..?"

"That's not too surprising." Edd randomly noted on, scrolling through another tab while still maintaining the same conversation with Matthew, to which the aforementioned ginger felt a tiny bit confused, but also slightly proud of himself which was remarked by a small hum and a giggle.

Matthew sat there, twiddling with the small pencil that for a minute was placed behind his ear for a little as he momentarily gazed down at his notes, then back up at Edd. "I swear to freaking god, if Markus wins the student council race, I will stare down with shame." Matt mumbled, a tone that resulted in something similar to concoctory, anger, and a sense of hidden confidence under the midst of it all. The ginger lost focus for a minute, and didn't continue with the rest of the sentence, shortening it abruptly as a small frown swept it's way to his face.

The brunette slighted his face towards Matthew as he continued to scribble down certain things, "You're still running for president?" he asked, only to not get a clue of what else he was going to say, and his following question was left about in the wind. The male narrowed his eyebrows, seeing Matt's facial change as he tried to comprehend this sudden mood diffusion. "What's going on?"

Matthew tapped his finger lightly on the desk before him, finding himself a little hesitant to answer him coherently. "..It's" he paused a little, most likely re-reading the message over again. "It's a message, from 'Tord Larder'" The male was silenced shortly after hearing those words.

That surely caught the brunette's attention. 

The brunette later scowled at the mention of it.  _What the hell._

"Matt, what the fuck." He retorted later on, sounding offensive and defensive in plain unison. "That's not a joke." The brunette snapped, even the smallest mention of his name, even if it was lightly, on an anniversary of all things was enough to send the entire school into hazardous panic if possible.

Matthew groaned a little in response to the sharp tone, "I'm not lying! Don't believe me? Look at your DM's right now!" Matthew protested instantly, and as much as Edd wished to avoid using social media to waste time off his own work. The heightened fear and sincerity in his voice was enough to make him consider this. Albeit insane and a little uncomfortable as it seems for him.

The brunette logged onto Facebook immediately, not giving a single glance anywhere else, and went towards the Private Message area. Getting in, the first thing he noticed was one sole new message from someone else online.

Tord Larder was the only sender.

_Didn't I already un-friend him?_

Edd had to do a double-check at the sight of this, before he recognized this was purely real and nothing else was influencing this. No, this was happening, and this was reality.

"Are you playing with me right now?" Edd nonchalantly mumbled, although it wasn't so nonchalant since one could literally hear a ramble of mix emotions in that tone. Matthew hummed in agreement, "That was my first thought, honestly."

"No, but seriously, click it. It's kinda weird." Matthew suggests, and Edd could already see this was gonna go far, but he didn't ignore what Matt had said and went through with this. 

_As if this shit wasn't weird enough._

The message opened up on his screen.

  **T** **ord Larder:** **Hallo Edd! :)**

_What the fuck._

_What the fuck._

The brunette hadn't recognized he murmured as much as those three words out, until he heard Matthew exclaim "EXACTLY." in the background, the ginger nodding in agreement frantically. "Gotta be some kind of sick hacker, or something, I don't know." Matt commented hurriedly. The brunette let out a soft sigh, running a palm on his forehead for just a little minute, falling silent as the ginger on the other end thought of ways to combat this. 

"We should just report it, I'm going to." He muttered, sounding calm and collected moreso than he was a couple minutes ago. He was probably trying to maintain sanity here, since on the expression of the brunette's face and how he was situated didn't resemble someone who could keep cool right now. "..I mean, there's nothing else to do now, right..?" Matt added on.

Edd exhaled a breath of air, glancing away from Matt for a solid few minutes before looking back again, having made up his confused mind.

"I'm gonna reply." He decided out of nowhere,  _the hell with that idea?_

From the look on his friend's face, and his own dividing thoughts, he didn't know if that was the best choice.


	2. Skype Request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revealing this kinda early for my own personal reasons, so have this for a minute. 
> 
>  
> 
> Username Key 
> 
>   * **VoidedSmirnoff** : Tom
> (obvious) 
>   * **Numero Uno** : Eduardo
> (also obvious) 
>   * **SkullBoi** : Hellucard 
>   * **IceQueen** : Laurel 
>   * **Princely** : Jon 
>   * **BlondBond** : Mark 
>   * **Red** : ~~???~~
> 


From the casted gaze on his friend's face, and his own divided reflections, he didn't know if that was the best choice. _What kind of crazy decision is that?_ He wasn't in his right mind with that answer, and he knew it, talking with a possible hacker would provide no answers to this. But with everything happening as it is, he didn't know any better choice, and on the other hand, he was slightly curious about it. One part wanted him to turn back on this and move on like the ginger indirectly suggested, the other was locked onto the message, curiosity taking over.

Then Matthew argued against the latter, "What!? No!" His voice raised just a little to emphasize his disagreement. Although Edd didn't know for sure how to argue against this, his sole response was just "Why not?" in a hesitant tone.

Matthew tapped his finger anxiously on his table as his head tilted slightly, his eyebrows narrowing as he stared firmly at the screen, went on and replied, "Oh, I don't know, maybe because it _Popped. Out of. Nowhere_?" He spoke, the tint of sarcasm and aggression lacing the tone of his voice.

"Matt, we can still report it in, I was just gonna say something along 'screw off' to the bastard and I'd be done." The brunette insisted, taking a small sip of the cola placed in the neat corner on his desk in order to tame his depreciating mood. Matthew, however, was still in his rather persistent one.

"But even _that's_ bad..! What if this is, like, some kind of cursed account where even replying to it can lead to them getting your password, or, your IP Address, or even–" Matt's voice slowly and surely got more quiet as he ranted.

Before Matthew could finish his sentence off, Edd interrupted it hastily as he listened to the ginger's wild choice of words, placing his cola back to the side and gazing right back at his face-cam. "It's not gonna get that bad, Matt." He replied, seeming calm despite feeling uncertain. The brunette had known that this type of situation was somewhat realistic in other scenarios, and this would bound cause conspiracy theories if people knew what was happening here. However, Edd didn't wanna fool around with the possibility, either, that this was just a well-thought-out prank. That name, a small part of it haunted him, and he just wanted the sole sick person doing this to be outted to the police and never seen of again.

Matthew went silent after Edd had spoke, which unsurprisingly wasn't curing this situation as it is. He was simply staring back at Matthew through the screen, waiting for his momentary response, again. "..You don't know that," the promising future student-council president, stated.

Edd had actually been a "close acquaintance", or friend of Matthew's for quite a bit of time since middle-school, but nothing of the mentioned ginger's tone resembled that cheerful boy from back then. Or, it didn't ring as a familiar vibe coming from him. He blinked and started, "..Matt, why are you taking this so seriously? I mean, yeah, this is creepy as hell and all, but. Everything'll be okay soon." He questioned, and also promised, trying to be an optimist here.

Matthew didn't hesitate anymore this time, from the perspective of the camera and his face, it appeared like he was using his mouse as he was speaking "Look, I know you're gonna think I'm crazy, and I probably am, not helping. But." He paused, then immediately continued afterwards. "I'll send a link, just a second." Edd nodded.

The brunette could only guess where this link was going to lead him, or why it truly mattered to begin with, but yet again he doesn't go against Matthew's words right now. He nodded, and waited while he was located on the messages page, refreshing the page a couple times as he searched for the message to come in.

 **FreckledBeauty: [Link]**  
 

 **FreckledBeauty: :/**  
 

**SocialCola: oh boy**

 After the brunette typed that reply as such, it was free-will as he clicked on the link, taking a minute to take a glance at the URL and feel quite anxious about it.  Perhaps they were just getting over there heads with this, by the time this mystery was solved they would've felt stupid for believing this was the work of a ghost out for the kill.

**  
_https://abnormal.forums.net/technology/communications/vengeance_ **

_Maybe I should've_. He started mentally, contemplating whether it was smart to not go against his friend's words' again. That didn't stop him from continuing on the page, although. With that in mind, the brunette went on and skimmed through the forums, attempting to take note of what it contained, for a while, he was growing bored and unimpressed with this. Most of the users recounting stories of friends and family that were contacted via technology by loved ones, and best friends. He continued to scroll through the forums, spotting a couple of concerning and graphic pictures as he went through, but he hurried straight past. Finally stopping on what he persumed Matthew wanted him to read about.

 

 

> _A vengeful spirit lying between Heaven and Hell, will reach out to enact their wrath out on those who respond and communicate with it. They shall possess or harm those who directly approach it._

The brunette figured that's the main reasoning for earlier, however, his reaction was a quick snort as he scrolled back to the top of the page. Tord Larder was dead and ridden in his eyes, no turning back from that.

He glanced back towards Matthew's screen again, raising an eyebrow in suspense. "So Tord's spirit is trying to haunt us and takeover our bodies?" He queried, Matthew flushed and pouting a little, knowing that when spoken like that it was ludicrous.

"Yeah!- No!- Maybe?- I don't know!" His words practically flew out of his mouth before his accent caught on to them, he sighed deeply. "Just, maybe we shouldn't respond to it, okay? Play it on the safe side, besides. They might not even reply back." Edd hadn't considered that idea before, but he was most likely right. "It might be a hacker, or a lost spirit, or whatever. And if it is a hacker, this is all for some screwed-up attention." 

Edd nodded again, Matthew's still right about this, and he wants to turn his back on this again, but as he stares at that message, it's growing increasingly harder to prevent his innocent curiosity. "Edd, just delete that thing, please?" He couldn't say no to this. How could he? And, that's what he was planning to do.

**Tord Larder: If you delete this, consider Matt dead.**

_"Planning."_

That word seemed a little idiotic by now. Matthew's almost gaping at the scene, and there he was, undergoing the same thing as the duo glanced towards each other and back at it. Words didn't have to be even said, or implied.

The ginger cringed for a minute, shaking his head as it turned back to face his plain white-notebook by his chair, reaching over for it as he did a double-take back at the screen and huffed a bit. "Uh..I'm..Gonna just erase my mind of that." He commented and skim-read through his notes, as if it was humanely possible to ignore that just happened.

"Yep." Edd quietly responded, innately wondering if he could even do the same, and if Matt really was aiming to block that out from his memory. Meanwhile, he went over and typed a small response.

**Eddie Goulfey: I don't know you, but this is freaking sick.**

While Matthew was skimming, Edd was busy refreshing the page for some kind of response. 

He did it once, no reply.

He did it twice, no reply.

He did thrice,  _still no damn reply._

Seconds had switched into minutes since then, and the conversation was turning uncomfortably silent since no one wanted to address these problems, or an upcoming problem. Eddie was far more anticipating on the response than his essay, and Matthew was just, there, doing whatever he could to distract himself.

Until he no longer did.

"Um, Edd–" Matthew's train of thought was ruined by the sounds of incoming requests bursting in.

**7 Requests.**

  
**VoidedSmirnoff, SkullBoi, NumeroUno, IceQueen, Princely, BlondBond, and Red want to Skype.**


	3. "Red"

His glance would occasionally focus back and forth between his essay and his computer screen for a moment, it was straining to believe that whatever this all was coming down to was real. He slightly shrugged in his seat, it couldn't have been, maybe the guy just knew they were on to him and reacted, that was correct. He assumed it would be useless to think the otherwise, he also didn't like how Matthew's and those forums theories were actually getting to his head now. This was ridiculous. He saw Matthew tilt his head back to him, fidgeting with his notebook to which it provided no entertainment or learning purposes other than being a soothing mechanism. "Um, Edd I-" He briefly murmured, before buzz after buzz of noises and notifications arised on the screen before him. They were requests, each one from somebody he recognized and friended, and some who were also kind of friends, but also still liked to chat with him once in a while. And, _this couldn't have been at any better time_.

"Accept it, dude." Matthew mumbled, setting his notebook off to the side as he begun to sound just as reserved as Eddie was becoming. The brunette rolled his eyes and invited them all in.

"Ey, guys!" Rung from Helly at least a second within the room, to which he was responded with a wave and a subtle friendly smile by Eddie.

"Hope we didn't interrupt some interesting things in here." Laurel remarked, Matthew and Eddie awkwardly chuckling at the ambiguous mention of the word "interesting". Eddie was more confused than anything else.

"Well, you guys didn't miss out on much." Eddie noted, and one that was dripping with half-truths everywhere.

"Definitely..." Markus commented underneath his breath with tints of sarcasm, gazing towards Matthew as laid what he was reading up on the desk for later indulgence. "We just didn't want to _ruin_ anything, I guess." He continued. Matt lightly glared, and rolled his eyes a little.

"Be nice, Mark." Eduardo muttered softly, a little lowkey tauntingly, but he shrugged a little and stayed quiet for the remainder of time. Some gazes pointing towards the two and Laurel's eyes rolling in slight annoyance.

Something managing to catch Eddie's eye, was the chestnut-haired male with his one eye halfway opening on his webcam, now that he thought about it, "VoidedSmirnoff" wasn't uncommon at all to him.

"Tom. I thought you were asleep?" Eddie slightly questions, 

 "...Oh, uh," The brunette sat and rubbed the back of his head for a minute, looking somewhat unsure of things. "I finished my Biology homework a little earlier, so why not try to pull an all-nighter?" He responded, a little awkward of an explanation.

"Tommy, you okay, you seem kind of shaken?" Jon muttered, tilting his head slightly at the other male. "It's okay, Jon, I'm good." He confirmed, rather quickly, but people decided to drop the subject.

"Who the fuck is that Red?" Eduardo mentioned, narrowing his eyes at the sight of their name as his voice dropped a few octaves when he proclaimed that.

"Red. Sounds catchy." Card replied, and one could tell he was gonna try to use a meme to break the tension, but he just left it with that.

Markus glanced towards the name as well, quietly analyzing this person's appearance. "More like, sorta sketchy, might be an attempt to be edgy." Mark suggests, and only few found this believable, which considering the people in the room, were most of them.

"Guys, it's just a color for a name. Nothing 'edgy' about that." Laurel hummed, glancing at Eduardo for a while before focusing elsewhere. "What's sketchy is how long this person's been here, what, five minutes?"

 Helly's expression grimaced as he heard that, glaring a little at the screen. "Ew. Stal-ker." He mumbled in a singsongy tone, emphasizing on the word as a matter-of-fact. Eventually, the room started to erupt with mixed chatter, figuring out what to do with the strange participant.

"What if it's a bot? Secretly spying on us or some shit."

"Oh god."

"Now that's creepy."

"Can't the host of the room block them out?"

The brunette went on and attempted to do that, to no avail.

"Nope, just tried that."

"Damn, let's just leave the room and come back, come on."

It wasn't a wild suggestion, the gang soon left the room before physically arriving back in, "Red" still sticking there in all their anonymous glory. This was later met with slight glares and small groans, as if the silent person was trolling them by their presence.

"It's time to stop. TIME TO STOP." Card chanted out once they got back in, his second one sounding more angrily. 

"Should we do it again?" Jon quietly suggests, and this was gonna become a back-to-back type of thing if they continued it, this confirming it wasn't gonna work completely. Things weren't going to get anywhere if they kept going on and on like this.

Eddie sighed and rested his head on his hand, staring still at the group video-chat. "Don't bother, look, they're not..Doing much of anything, so let's ignore them." He commented reassuringly, albeit still suspicious of their intentions.

"Yeah, probably a glitch, yeah..." Laurel casually replied, and although it was fairly strange, that was the scenario they were going with. And things started to slowly continue on as normal.

Even as the brewing conversations were still going on after everybody learned how to ignore this bot, or glitch, or whomever this person was. Edd's eyes still had a tendency to revert back to that person, blocking the voices from his ears.

This lasted for a while, until he noticed a message from Matthew coming in again.

**FreckledBeauty: that's not a glitch, is it**

 

**SocialCola: Matt.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: Edd?**

 

**FreckledBeauty: idk Im just going paranoid rn**

 

**FreckledBeauty: i feel like its that fb thing all over again.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: *FB**

 

**FreckledBeauty: I mean, it's make a lot of damn sense.**

Edd blinked a little, and exhaled a subtle sigh, reading over that response before replying something back again.

**SocialCola: Matt, chill. it's not Tord trying to haunt us for revenge. And even if he was, we didn't do anything.**

**FreckledBeauty: you know that's not true. I know that's not true**

**SocialCola: we shouldn't blame ourselves**  

 

The next thing Matthew replied was a simple link, and the brunette had a feeling where this one was going to take him. Already having a feeling where this was gonna turn.


	4. Greetings.

**FreckledBeauty** : **_one video link attached_**

 

 He was lightly disturbed by the fact that this was being brought up, in his mind, again. Reason said because the video that was brought to him was not a foreign link he hadn't saw before, the male sighed, and proceeded to click on it.

 

 ** _"_** _GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME._ ** _"_** A norwegian's voice was sounded, the tone both aggressive and somewhat filled with distress if one heard it for long enough. It was almost kinda scarring, and enough to evoke pity. 

 

The brunette slightly jumped from the volume of that sentence, and quickly paused the video. which was caused from his own mistake on skimming the first few minutes of the video. However, in actuality it was an accurate highlight of how the rest of the video would of ended up and summarized. He reversed back to the beginning, and let it begin from there.

 

Despite his own judgement telling him to let it be, his eagerness to watch it didn't correspond with his mind. He continued to watch a few seconds of the video, as expected, he's greeted with Tord Larder, standing near the school gates whilst sobbing and laughing as if his mentality went on the derailment, attempting to keep a casual phone-call with someone. Not even noticing the person filming him, until he turned and finally did. The male was shown lashing out, which was the scene where he cursed them out, going and approaching them before the video faded and glitched out.

 

Glancing towards the side of the other suggested videos, there were bunches of these, all containing a title and thumbnail referring to the same student. He would of stayed, and focused on this one more, until he spotted one that piqued his interest much more.

 

_R.I.P Tord. By #LarderExposed_

 

 

 

Eddie technically knows these events far too well without watching the video display it for him, he had saw it happen right before his own eyes. The body of Tord Larder discovered near the playground, scarlet blood appearing from the sight of it, and a pistol laid next to his possibly decaying body. It had to of been decaying, because no one had known how long it had been, or how, or mostly the better question, why.

 

The memories of it still remain sharply clear. Edd had remembered the sound of Patryck and Matt's crying, how Mark moved to cover Jon's innocent eyes, Laurel not being able to look out of devastation and disappointment, Tom's unreadable gaze, and Eduardo throwing up on quick notice. The investigation had ruled it thoroughly as a suicide, one that must of happened secretly, possibly to avoid the amount of people consoling him and trying to have him reconsider. In summary, the active and wildcard male had killed himself in a place the gang once considered as fun and memorable, now all for the wrong reasons.

 

The comments below it, once he took a few seconds of a glance, contained of multiple users with mixed feelings on whether he deserved to die, or didn't. A lot of them either contained the former or the latter, some saying this should be rationally taken down, others thinking this should of happened, and some were comments that were in a way felt insensitively out of place.

 

 

 

The video doesn't show of all the regarded details, but it is unnecessary to have to, for he knew what they were already.

 

"Edd, are you okay?" A voice- Laurel, he recognizes, curiously asked him, and it brings the brunette back to his reality. He minimizes the video tab, and resumed back to the friendly group chat.

 

"Yeah, I was researching a little World War I thing." The brunette covers up with a lie, and although the blue-nette herself nods, he can tell by her slight quizzical expression that she doesn't fully believe him.

 

"...Soooooooooo..." Matthew says at one point, and Eddie knows that somehow, someway, he was gonna gear this over towards, "Have you guys seen that Tord Larder message on Facebook? It's a pretty screwed-up joke spreading." He slowly explained. With this, Edd decides to message him.

 

**SocialCola: we don't even know if it reached the others yet. Also what are you pulling here.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: s h u s h**

 

**SocialCola: ??? eh**

 

**FreckledBeauty: look man.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: I just wanna sleep with the knowledge that a vengeful spirit doesn't want to ruin everybody, and my face.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: so if I have to look into this myself I'm going to.**

 

**SocialCola: oh shit.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: so you wanna help me out or not?**

 

_**SocialCola is typing...** _

 

He was actually contemplating this, he thought–no, knew this was going crazy if he managed to join along with this idea. However, at the same time, the small, sneaking suspicion that no matter what he was going to say would change Matthew's mind, was what made him do the inevitable.

 

**SocialCola: Sure, whatev**

 

**FreckledBeauty: good good.**

 

 "Um," Jon paused a little, followed by a flinch and spoke. "Yeah, I got one a little earlier..?" He frowned a bit.

 

"And so it wasn't just me? Figures." Mark replied, his tone dripping with exasperation. "Somebody trying to scare us, on his anniversary, of all days." The room remained quiet, with not just Jon flinching, but no one decides to comment.

 

"Think it's that Pat guy? He and someone else were _fanboys_ of him, pretty sure they'd dislike us." Eduardo remarks, and Hellucard pursed his lips in the background.

 

"Nice thinking, Ed! I'd..Probably ask him, but." The canadian fell silent, rubbing his arm with an awkward sense of tension. "Don't think he knows I exist yet, heh.." Hellucard replies, and Laurel just chuckled quietly at the male's semi-typical behavior, before offering on her own.

 

"I can do it." The blue-nette suggested, "Pat didn't come off as an ass to me when we talked before, it could work." Surprisingly, that didn't seem to be a bad plan, until things were considered, or at least.

 

"...Nah." Eduardo simply replies, in someway taking charge of where this conversation was going. "And why not, Mister. _Uno_." Laurel argued, nearly glaring at her (boy?)friend.

 

"One. It's  _Numero Uno._ Two, you're not abrasive enough, and we don't know what type of guy this is." The brunette snapped back. 

 

Markus rolled his eyes slightly at aforementioned response, narrowing his eyes at Eduardo. "And surely _you_ can do something, right, like people would give answers to you, who might use nonsensical force." He sarcastically chimed in.

 

Edd couldn't handle this anymore, and rightfully given so, he sighed deeply and went on to saying something. He sighed again, "As much as I thought it was kind of impossible. Eduardo is right." He confirmed, which was followed by a slightly irritated "Hey." by mentioned male in the background. "We don't know anything about him, or, anybody Tord was once acquianted with. If it comes down to it. I can go and talk to Pat. If Laurel is right about him, it shouldn't be that big of a problem."

 

Matthew nodded frantically, "Yeah, guys, we can't argue about this!" He says, and the half cheery tone of it almost brought a sense of hope. "None of us knows what's going on. Heck, it might be worser than we think." He added, and it took most of his restraint to not unravel that the only reason Matt was anxious about this was because, and in a way, himself, were believing this was the work of the supernatural. 

 

With mixed suggestions and ideas thrown around the room, Edd started to ponder about all of this.

 

"I know, let's just bring in Pau." Hellucard says, coming off as a subtle suggestion, and Edd's pondering ended in a brevity.

 

"Paul?" Jon curiously mumbles out, switching his gaze towards Card's camera. 

 

The brunette didn't know how to take this, was it even best to bring more people into this situation? But, then again, in order to finally settle this they needed someone who would have a neutral opinion and could possibly figure this out in a rational manner. This meaning, Paul was the best remaining bet.

 

_**You have requested for Cigar.v to join the call.** _

 

_God, what was he doing._

 

_**Cigar.v joined the call.** _

 

"Oh, uh, hey." Paul starts, quietly glancing around the room and mentally questioning how and why he was randomly brought here, he blinked and started. "...What even is this, Edd?" He steadily mumbled.

 

"It's about Tord Larder, and maybe Patryck." Laurel gives out a short explanation, Paul nodded a little, almost everyone noticing his expression beginning to change, and Eddie is maybe unnecessarily anxious.

 

It took Paul a minute to say anything back, but after that while he began to say something. "...Yeah, I saw a weird message earlier, but, Patryck Dudulinn has nothing to do with this." The brunette muttered, and now the room isn't truly convinced.

 

"And how do _you_ know?" Matthew asks, and he lifted an eyebrow as it appeared like he was playing a good-cop/bad-cop scene. "Do you have any ties to Pat or something?" He queried, his voice going slightly deeper.

 

"What kind of ties?" Paul muttered, then re-directing his sentence. "Anyways, the reason why I know Pat's not involved, is because he wasn't here." The male explained, and this turned some tail-lights.

 

"What's that suppose to mean?" Tom jumped in.

 

Paul sighed, "It means, that Patryck went missing earlier this afternoon, no one's been able to contact him yet. It's like the guy went totally off radar." He confessed, seeming to appear slightly upset, as if the stoic male showed that much emotion off before.

 

The room fell silent, a couple of shocked gasps showing all over the web-cams. Their faces said it all, but no one was sure of what to say, or what good it would of done. Eddie's mood wasn't in a slight change, and he feared it was only worsening. Suddenly, Edd gets a message from both Tom and Matt in unison, nothing could potentially come good from this. He went and read over Matt's first.

 

**FreckledBeauty: this gotta be a lead**

 

**FreckledBeauty: Tord is back and he did something to Pat because he thought why not take down the people who stood by him.**

 

**SocialCola: or maybe Pat just didn't know how to take the death of his best friend and ran off. This is crazy, Matt.**

 

**FreckledBeauty: :///**

 

Afterwards, Edd took a glance towards Tom's message, with following other messages, and for a minute didn't even know how to reply to this.

 

**VoidedSmirnoff: dude**

 

**VoidedSmirnoff: something's wrong, I know that**

 

**VoidedSmirnoff: but the way you and Matt are acting is making me feel like there's something else here.**

 

**VoidedSmirnoff: what the fuck is happening?**

 

He ended it all off with a question, a question the brunette didn't know of a good answer towards, had he been reading the atmosphere he was emitting this entire time? Or, he could come up with a random false answer, but he couldn't, Tom was much more intelligent than that. In fact, Matt never told him they were suppose to handle other's growing suspicions, and here he was, trying to decide between the half or the full, unrelenting truth.

 

He soon began to type again.

 

 _"So, if that's all, then I'm just gonna go-"_ Paul began, before his sentence was cut-off by the abrupt message arrival provided by within the call itself.

 

**Red: why hang up now? We're just beginning!! :]]]]]]**

 

**Red: Nobody is hanging up! :]**

 

"Oh, so now the bastard wanna talk." Eduardo harshly commented, not even fazed by this development, while it takes a second for Mark and Jon to chuckle in discreet, before back to business.

 

Matt, however, nearly jumps. "Holy shit!" He gasped out, and it looked like the ginger was uncomfortably fidgeting with his air for a second until that popped on in. Then like a cycle, another private message from Tom popped in.

 

**VoidedSmirnoff: please tell me, Edd.**

 

And with that one message, Tom's cam is shown with the male raising his hand up all of a sudden, causing everyone's gazes to shift towards him. "Okay, everyone put your damn hands up." He commands, clearly aggravated from knowing his two friends knew more about this than himself, and trying to show "Red" how he didn't have fear. "Whoever is doing this, needs to fucking stop, now."

 

Everyone else follows and does the same, another message comes in soon later.

 

**Red: : )**

 

Just who even was this guy?

 

 


	5. S͋ͯgͪ̃n̟ͦi̩̼̱ͦ̂ͪt̯̣̦̃͐ͣẹ̾er͎̟ͣ̽g͎̐, ̎̆̈́Ỳ̹̙̆mm͔̲̀̾o̱̥ͯͪt̺̜͗̃̓ͅ.̾ͮ

_His vision was clouded by the subtle sighting of scarlet blood covering the floor, the liquid appearing faint but slightly dry, as if it had been there for a while. Most likely, the blood of someone else's. Alongside the continous noises of his own heavy panting, and no clue of where this was taking place. His heart was practically pumping out of his body._

_If that's how he remembered the dream, his body was freaking out just like he was in it, maybe that's what made him wake up a little earlier than usual. He began to theorize._

_He simply wanted that thought to fly past his mind._

_"Tom, are you okay? You seem kind of..Shaken?" Jon muttered, with slight confusion in his words as if he was either struggling to get the right word out, or if it was the right way to address the male's situation. He almost wanted to chuckle from hearing how semi-concerned he was, it made him feel a little better, just a little._

_"It's okay, Jon, I'm good." He replied, lightheartedly, and a part of him wonders if he should of even said that. It was low-pitched, and to him, it sounded quite awkward from where he was standing. But after that, no one addressed it anymore, and he presumed that was it. Then, Eddie asked how he was still awake, and he tried to end the burdening questions there. Possibly to avoid revealing anything openly without getting an interrogative reply._

_Although it wasn't a lie, honestly, maybe it wasn't the entire truth that homework and weekend all-nighters made him want to simply resist anything else regarding the specialty of this day. But, it was still something, and perhaps that was enough to convince him this was alright, that this was fine._

_And, for a while going on, that's what things were as the night continued on, meaningless banter thrown about and the random chatter surrounding him from people that he known and, albeit to certain extent towards some of them, trusted. He remained seated and quiet, still contemplating whether that darned dream meant anything or not, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Someone he once knew stated that dreams can be a distorted form of remembering, he didn't know what that meant, and clearly it didn't matter. Besides, what had been done that could possibly make him remember anything?_

_Then, madness starts to blow over, all people are talking about here are those "messages" the one about the guy that committed suicide. If it was even suicide at all and not some planned out murder from a highly irritated outside source. It took him a minute to understand what he was even thinking about, he was starting to sound like Matthew already. Dammit._

_Point is, the once random chat-room starts to fill with people talking about some mystery guy that probably hacked his way to be able to stay in here, attempting to get said mystery guy out of the room for greater good, and later about messages from dead people. Technically, the last one was the most unsettling of them all._

_With all things considered, no doubt the two were related, and they were the unfortunate victims of a disturbing intellect's prank. However, he couldn't tell why he was starting to feel unnerved, out of place now even when he was surrounded by people he knew._

_Maybe it was the fact that he too, received a message. But, it was unclear and ridiculously vague.Maybe it was the fact that he too, received a message. But, it was unclear and ridiculously vague._

  
**Tord Larder: you know who.**

_He held that back, mentioning what it read wouldn't of made any difference to where they are. Besides, that comment made no hints of sense, and this surely was a hack since he bet plenty of dollars Tord wouldn't of texted him this. At least, not in this type of way. The norse was notorious for how slightly sociopathic he acted, no one could tell if that was a facade, and if it was, it was well blocked off from society._

_And, with noting that, he couldn't of been the only one in this room that was hiding something from somebody, their expressions told more than their mouths. It would of been cringe-worthy if he wasn't so observant about it._  
_"Patryck went missing earlier this afternoon, no one's been able to contact him yet. It's like the guy went totally off radar."_

_Perhaps it was just his own previous anxiety added up by the inconsistencies of this night, but he had to know something, he had to figure out why this was turning so weird so fast._

_And he was becoming sure that those two were the clues to that why._

  
_He went and contacted Eddie directly into a private message, it was mostly redundant to think of it, but he needed to know some form of answer if there was anything that could explain this. Not the theory that the two could be involved with this somehow, but perhaps, something that could ease his slight paranoia, anything._

_He typed all those things split, and shortened, and not making too much sense, but that was the mood he was in right now. Didn't necessarily help that the brunette was replying right when that mystery person finally makes themselves known to the public, forcing people to acknowledge that they were still there despite them being the indirect cause of everyone freaking out around here._

_And then, the same cycle of madness takes another dark turn, and Matthew's about ready to pull his hair out from the mild anticipation and unsettling atmosphere. He couldn't blame him, however, he wasn't bound to doing the same._

_Instead, he does the idiotically unthinkable, and raises his hand as he stares at the nonchalant anonymous person on the corner of the screen, frowning lightly at the ends. "Okay, everyone put your damn hands up." He decides to demand, and despite his new-found sense of fear in this situation against a supposed hacker. He wasn't going to show them that, no, he wasn't going to show it anything._

_"Whoever is doing this, needs to fucking stop, now." He states afterwards._

 

Red is so not gonna win this game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kinda went full-blown Tom's P.O.V for this one lol-  
> this is basically Tom's view of the previous chapter and hence why things are condensed and provide a little hints on him since he's actually a pretty important character here tbh
> 
>  
> 
> ~~~~everyone's kinda hiding something~~~~
> 
>  
> 
> ~~~~  
>   
>   
> be warned of death.  
>   
>   
> 


	6. Søt

_**Red: :]]]**_

 

* * *

The anon replied back simply, almost curtly, in response to the group's latest brand of actions in attempt to get answers. It was this moment that practically told everyone that they were not going to go down by saying their name, that is, riding on the broad assumption that this was still another living human being, as Matt and Edd had debated on. Slowly, the group's hands lowered, and it appeared like Eduardo's temperament was getting tested as the minutes flown on by.

 

A rough bang on a desk was heard abroad around the call, drawing attention by everyone and presumably the trolling anon as well. The main cause, by none other than the prideful male himself. "That's all you're gonna fuckin' say!?" He shouted out. One could tell that he wished to reach over and choke the anon into oblivion in order to end this, but of course, that would also be reckless and physically impossible. "I swear to god-damn hell if this is Todd Svelton-"

 

 "..Who?" Matthew haphazardly muttered, uncertainty beginning to take the best of him.

 

Mark pursed his lips, lightly shrugging as he met Matt's gaze. "Just a friend." He plainly replied. 

 

Tension had strucken across the room, as a natural given, and the fact that this anon wasn't giving any sort of hints of who they truly were was getting to the gang even more. Most definitely Eduardo. In result of this, everyone's brewing anxiety caused small accusations to float around as if this was key to solving the mystery.

 

"Wait, how do we know this is not Edd's doing? None of this shit started happening until we came in here." Someone had the urge to say, and before Edd (or anyone else) had the momentary chance to argue, Hellucard voiced in. "... _No!_ Edd is too nice for that, and..It's just...It's just not his character." The male defended, and the brunette was slightly surprised, but a small tint of a smile showed. "..Thanks, Hellu." He murmured off to him, in which the canadian chuckled.

 

With that, it was obviously noticing how things were slowly beginning to change. One minute everyone's on the same side, the next it's similar to feeling like somebody out there was responsible for this happening, like people you knew were slowly becoming untrustworthy to themselves and others. Edd glanced back at the messaging between him and Tom, spotting an unfinished trace of text he was going to send.

 

 

 

**SocialCola: tom im so sorry its that|**

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Matthew started speaking, somehow becoming the voice of reason in this small group room, again. "C'mon, guys, we can't just blame everybody." He mumbled, rolling his eyes lightly.

 

 

 

"And why not?" Eduardo roughly protested, of course the possibility that this was too much to handle for his mind, or anyone's for that matter, was driving the male off the edge ever so near. " _Clearly_ , we aren't getting anywhere by sitting by on our asses and doing _nothin'!_ " 

 

 

 

Jonathan, having noticed the aggravation in his friend's tone to the point of it scaring him a little, tried to address it lightly with a "Eduardo, stop—"

 

" ** _SHUT UP, JON..!_** " The male snapped, vocalizing the hidden hostility that had to be unleashed out somehow, jittering Edd out of resuming his sentence right where he had it, and Jon staying back no longer saying a word, his expression appearing unreadable yet stunned. Afterwards, the dark-brunette had to take an internal moment to recognize what he had done.

 

"Ed, what the hell..!?" Laurel cried out to him, her voice raising over empathy and out-right irritation over that. In fact, her expression alone spoke a lot of things she didn't utter.

 

Edd hadn't realized the call had gone so uncomfortably silent after that, instead of the others speaking about theories and who else was involved in this scenario, no one was saying anything at all. Seconds among minutes began to flow by, but it started to feel like months.

 

"...Jon." Eduardo mumbled, uselessly tapping his one finger on his desk as he gazed over towards the other's screen, his tone dripping with a sense of guilt within it. He blinked a little, "....I'm sorry." He apologized after a short pause. Drawing the other male's attention, "Oh, uh, it's fine." Jon reassured, a small smile rising to his face.

 

"Seriously?" Eduardo queried, an embarrassed blush arising on his face from all that. 

 

"Yeah..?" Jon mumbled back, awkwardly shrugging his shoulders as he stared back at him. "I was kinda worried back there, though, I'll admit. You seemed really scared, Duardy." Jon murmurs calmly, and Eduardo is struck with momentary embarrassment, as if the other managed to figure out how he was so aggressive in the past few minutes.

 

Laurel narrowed her eyes at the scene, her arms crossed before she snickered at the sight of Eduardo's faint yet visible blushing. "That's not something you see a lot." She tauntingly commented, the man simply grumbled. Jon begun to laugh a little.

 

Funny, Edd hadn't remembered Eduardo genuinely apologizing to anyone before, or, maybe it just wasn't in his vicinity. In truth, Edd didn't know too much about his rival/friend for a while now. Which is pretty useless, when thinking about it now of most times, but it just crossed his mind.

 

* * *

 

_**Conversation** _

 

_**SocialCola: im so sorry tom** _

 

**_SocialCola: its a lot_ **

 

**_SocialCola: did Matt tell you anything?_ **

 

**_VoidedSmirnoff: No, but I didn't talk to him yet_ **

 

**_VoidedSmirnoff: All I know is that I got a freaky msg from tord larder_ **

 

**_VoidedSmirnoff: probably fake idk_ **

 

**_VoidedSmirnoff: and now this Red BS is happening_ **

 

**_SocialCola: me and Matt are starting to think their connected._ **

 

**_SocialCola: as in, "same person" connected_ **

 

**_VoidedSmirnoff: same person??_ **

 

 _ **SocialCola: I know it's weird af and hard to explain but I'm not taking this lightly anymore**_  

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff is typing...** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: jeezus christ** _

 

_**SocialCola: please tom. promise not to tell the rest yet.** _

 

_**SocialCola: I'm kinda confused on what to believe anymore.** _

 

* * *

 

Technically, both Matt and Eduardo had a point, blaming everybody here for an issue that couldn't be explained with reason wasn't going to help anything at all. But also, no one was coming up with answers of their own for this, and "Red" surely wasn't providing any. This was becoming a lost cause, until the mentioned anon wished to join the conversation.

 

 **Red: you guys fighting over me? aw,** **søt* :)**

 

"So..ut?" Jon randomly attempted to pronounce.

 

"...Is that even English?" Matt chimed in after.

 

Tom groaned and facepalmed in mere disappointment.

 

Paul awkwardly rose his hand, this time without encouragement and perhaps to draw attention towards the mysterious anon again, then quickly lowered it. "Um, so, uh, why don't you want me to leave, again..?" He felt the hesitant desire to ask, assuming he could use this chance to communicate with Red.

 

**Red: why not?? lol**

 

**Red: without you, the gang wouldn't be complete :]]]**

 

**Red: and no one could find out who posted the video! :]**

 

For just a couple comments posted on the chat, and no vocals heard, the way it still managed to sound carefree and cheerful was in a way, quite sickening.

 

Edd lowly chuckled, as if doing so was going to fix the unsettling nature of this moment, and match up to the ten-story plummet he felt in his chest. "Um, what video..?" 

 

* * *

 

**Conversation**

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: I won't.** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: also can i tell you something?** _

 

_**SocialCola: sure okay** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: what if, tord didn't commit suicide** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: he just, didn't seem like tht kind of guy to me** _

 

_**SocialCola: youre having weird thoughts, too?** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: smh maybe** _

 

_**VoidedSmirnoff: but still. it kinda still bugs me how he died.** _

 

* * *

 

**Red: tell me who posted that video, or someone dies, here and now.**

 

This has to be another empty threat.

 

"Oh my freaking god." Laurel sputtered out, before closing her mouth immediately.

 

"What video!? What are they even talking about?" Hellucard commented, even more apparent that what the two, or now three boys were beginning to theorize was only relevant in their minds and nobody else's. Until, Edd finally sighed and let it out freely of his own accord.

 

"...Tord Larder, that one video, that's what this is about." The brunette informs, and slightly mocked somehow. The ginger glanced towards Edd in mild suspicion, before turning back to the others and nodding, proving this wasn't just one guy's assumption.

 

"So, wait, then all those messages..?" Jon was putting this all together.

 

"This is some sort of sick joke, it can't be Tord. Tord _is dead,_  this is just some lowlife clown trying to ruinevenhis after-life." Eduardo remarked. "And once I find out who that is, you're gonna be in for quite a beating, loser." The male insinuates, voicing his threat directly towards the name on the corner of the screen. The male moved from his chair and went across his room, presumably to find his diet cola.

 

A short grumble was heard from the blonde still within the call as he took account of this situation. "You know, why isn't anyone doing a rational thing, like calling the cops?" And with that, Mark stood up from his chair as well, heading off to the corner to his cellphone. "This is not a three-star horror movie, I mean..." The male was heard venting off in the background, eventually some words was cut off, as the camera was still focused ahead.

 

Eduardo returned back with his diet cola, realizing the blonde's short disappearance. "Yo, where's Mark?"

 

"Dialing the cops." Tom replies, rubbing the palm of his hand on his head as he mentally was sorting things out. In a flash of time, another ping arrived on screen.

 

**Red: it's been twelve minutes. No answers.**

 

**Red: Mark isn't smart as we thought, is he?**

 

The tone of the message this time wasn't as befitting for Red to have, nor was this set of comments he made, nonetheless it was. Sooner than later, the remaining people in the call start shouting back for Matt to return, for ever since he left his room no sighting of him was found, nor was his voice heard as a sigh he was still in the vicinity of his computer. His camera begins to glitch rapidly, alongside what nearly sounded like low-pitched screaming, and a glass breaking across the screen. 

 

The latter actually happening, seeming to shatter around the computer camera and jump-scaring most of the people in the call, Eduardo's diet cola dripping from the tip of the opened-can. His screen glitches again, yet the dark-brunette kept yelling out his name continually, as if Mark suddenly walking back to the room would settle as closure for this. The screen slowly stops glitching, this time, the camera no longer focusing straightforward as it was used to. The next sight was practically way too disturbing for Edd to focus on.

 

The blonde laid there, the glass was presumably from the blender that Mark had owned. Scarlet blood running down from his head and tins of it on his neck as it was likely the blender was smashed over the top of him, his light-blue eyes still lying open, but bland and lifeless. Eventually, after the horrific view his camera was switched off, and his username exited the call.

 

Edd could of sworn he heard a bunch of crying, and his mouth still laid agape at the sight.

 

**Red: does...anyone else want to play? I don't mind! ^^**

 

This was it.

 

This was what they got themselves into now.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _bet ya didn't expect that bombshell did ya_
> 
>  
> 
> tbh I feel bad for all these guys.
> 
> Translation's Note: *søt = sweet


	7. Confession, Recession.

He started to feel the room around him slowly grow cold, whether that applied to both the group call or his own bedroom was yet to be determined. A couple droplets of water fell down on his upper-lip, and his keyboard, alerting him that he had been dead quiet and truly stunned as he spotted the username "BlondBond" disappear from the skype call. It took almost a minute for the British teen to close his mouth from it's gaping view.

His eyes took note of the remaining gang aligned before him, Matt was close to evoking a scream from witnessing his past rival go down in such a horrific manner, Tom couldn't stare at the screen much longer, Laurel and Jon were sobbing to themselves, Hellucard was slightly in the same position as him, and Eduardo was still yelling out for Mark's name with tears running down his face, almost as if he was still in mild disbelief and not willing to face the reality.

Another ping popped up, ruining the couple moments of eerily mournful silence that had upheld this room.

**Red: So, does anyone else want to play?**

**Red: anyone has a chance! Speak now or forever hold your peace!**

As of now, that last sentence held irony since no one wanted to say anything at all. Rightfully so, since for some here, they lost a friend, for others, the potential of having a friend.   
"Why...Why, why would you.." Jonathan attempts to say, before his efforts were futile and he couldn't come straight out with it. It was both pitiful and devastatingly pathetic that Edd couldn't help but sympathize, which is what he already was doing before.

The Spanish's male's free fist was visually curled up and tightened in a brief moment of rage accompanied with sadness. "..I'm gonna kill you." He mumbled, albeit still impossible but his emotions were coming through way too strongly now. "I'm gonna fucking kill you and watch you die." He threatened, his voice audibly trembling with every inch of the words.

Laurel turned to Eduardo with worry, although he was likely venting or he really meant it (which, in no doubt, he probably would have) she still was highly concerned where those threats would leave him.

"Wait..Mark called the cops, right, right?" Hellucard mentioned, not noticing he had repeated a word.

"He did, or, if he managed to in time. But. I don't think they prioritized us yet." Laurel commented.

"I don't think the police are gonna help this." Tom stated a little bluntly, either referring to the police not coming soon enough or the other known facts. He sighed a little, not recognizing his own hand trembling on the side. "Someone has to confess who posted that thing. Asap."

He was right, but there was also one problem. "How do they know it was one of us? I wasn't at that party, and I'm sure as hell no one else was, right?" Eduardo mumbled, and either the others were hesitant on responding or someone was holding back something.

"I..I wasn't either." Laurel finally said aloud, inspiring the others to speak up their intentions as well. "I didn't get an invitation." voiced from Jon, and Helly nodded because he obviously went through the same thing. 

The brunette switched his view to Paul, raising an eyebrow at him. "And..What about you, Paul?" Edd mumbled, probably not in the right to ask questions since he himself was there, but he felt he had a right to do so anyhow.

The stoic teen mentioned glanced at Eddie, before staring at the rest of the faces crowding the room, some slightly glaring at him, he crossed his arms and replied, "I did get an invitation, so did Pat. But, I also wasn't there so I wouldn't know." He honestly says, and the call goes quiet again.

"Why?" Matt simply queried, most likely voicing the question lingering in everyone else's mind.

Paul glanced towards him, in which he huffed and let out a quick sigh. "It just...Didn't fit for me, and, even though I was invited, I wasn't too intent on house party's, anyways. Not too much my thing." He explained, and some narrowed their eyes in mild suspicion. However, with the way things were going people couldn't understand what he'd gain out of lying. This meant that the last three remaining were culprits, everyone except Paul began to focus on them.

"Ah, so the three musketeers." Edd almost wanted to cringe at the newly given nickname by Eduardo, likely so did Tom by his facial expression. "Just fess up now, who the fuck posted it." The male immediately questions, getting straightforward to the point.

"Was it you, Matt?" Jonathan started to point fingers already, a little uncommon given his position in this, but one could see the brunette was visually struggling to not break. This situation slowly becoming more and more uncomfortable.

"No! It wasn't me, okay, I swear! Yes. I was at the party, but I left after things started to get really bad!" Matt instinctively defends, then he looks at Edd.

Eddie sighed, "It's true, I left after he did, especially after a few drugs were getting through." He stated, knowing that definitely wasn't a lie, next he glanced over towards Tom. Who appeared rather dumbfounded but still was expected to have his say in the manner.

Tom gazed at the other webcamera's, he gulped a little before coming-out with his own sort of statement. "I...I don't really remember." He facepalmed after that, figuring what confessing that would result in sorts of consequences. Everyone's eyes appeared to have widened at him.

* * *

 

**Conversation**

  
**SocialCola: you seriously don't remember??**

**VoidedSmirnoff: I had a couple of drinks there, not too many but**

**SocialCola: omg tom I**

**VoidedSmirnoff: I promise I didn't do anything else though**

**VoidedSmirnoff: maybe a small fight but**

**SocialCola: oh gOD**

**VoidedSmirnoff: it wasn't too bad**

* * *

"Oh, really now?" Hellucard questioningly muttered, inserting himself into the conversation. 

  
Tom narrowed his eyes at him and Edd's chat, before back at the room. "I took a couple, okay, more than a couple swigs there, so I don't know when things escalated." He paused, re-situating himself. "..But, the one thing I do remember is socking a guy who tried to offer me drugs, arguing, then leaving from the attention." He attempted to correctly explain, some people still appeared suspicious of him, though, but he said what needed to be said.

There was a positive and negative aspect about this, Edd didn't take long to recognize, if Tom spent more time there than before him and Matt had the chance to leave. Perhaps there was a chance he spotted someone there who took the video themselves, or even almighty Tord himself if he took a good look. But. This also meant Tom wasn't out of the suspects list yet, and that they were gonna have to rely on a once badly drunken guy to gain his memories fast enough to tell what really happened.

All that thinking was starting to burden him down with so much confusion, he nearly faceplanted on his desk.

Laurel groaned in misery, burying her face into her hands. "...Uggghhh, this is getting us nowhere!" The blue-nette screamed, standing up from her chair she fiddled with something under her desk, presumably searching for something.

"I'm gonna go tie up my bedroom door for good reasons," She began. "I have my volume turned all the way up, so if anything happens, just call my name." Laurel informs the crew, they watch as she briefly leaves whilst hearing Eduardo shout out "Be careful!" before she disappeared off-screen. God, it was obvious they were together.

"So, if it wasn't any of us, who could of posted it?" Jon slowly asked abruptly.

  
"Don't know." Paul briefly replied, lazily tapping his finger on one of his still crossed arms. "..It could be any of us, really, just no one wants to admit it." Silence filled the room again, he had to of been right.

"..Wait." Tom starts again, garnering attention. "There is something else I remember." he paused a bit, "..Not anything important but, someone else was there, some weird blonde guy."

"Was it Marcus?" Edd questioned.

  
"No." Tom replied, disregarding that assumption immediately. "..He helped me out a little bit, it was something, something.." His voice lowered and expression mingled with frustration as his brain tried to come up with an answer. "Dammit, his name began with a 'Y'." 

"..Yuu...?"

   
"You know him, Paul?" Eduardo glanced towards him.

"I mean, me and him spoke a couple times in the past, didn't even assume he was going." He glanced at his contacts, "And, it also says he's online right now. Usually he's offline, guess I never checked." Paul rambled slightly.

"Oh shit, can you give me his username?" 

Paul glanced over to Edd, and awkwardly chuckled a little to offset his hesitance. "Oh, uh, sure, sending it now."

* * *

**Cigar.v: sunflowersoldier**

**SocialCola: thanks**

**Cigar.v: no prob.**

* * *

Whilst Edd was busy now attempting to add Yuu into the call, he was interrupted by the grating sound of a sudden scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So so so sorry I didn't update this with the date I promised, things were coming up and I think the weekend flew by fast lol. But, with an hour of chillbeats in my ears I cracked this up and out today. 
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> so, remember when I said Tom had an important part in this? 
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> whalp, that's coming into play now, and I also decided to leave this on a cliff-hanger cause, I wanted to see what you guys would react to it
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> Yuu's making an appearance soon so hoo-ray for that tbh


	8. New Post.

The range of the scream was high-pitched, provoking his hand to render unable to move his mouse and proceed to add Yuu into the call. His clover-shaded eyes dilated, wondering if this was his imagination's misjudgment or this was reality. His gaze went back towards the crew, mostly everyone's eyes focused on Laurel's bedroom. _No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no._

"LAUREL..!" His ears heard voices resonate, which not too longer he began to scream out himself, internally hoping that Laurel would come back to the screen safe and sound. The morbid familiarity of that assumption made him cringe, and a couple of soft tears drip from his eyelids again. Before any of them could know it, the female's screen glitched, and they finally spotted the blue-nette, tying a knot and hanging it directly on her ceiling-fan. The sight of it making the ginger cover his mouth.

She seemed so calm, as if this wasn't an odd occurrence and nothing else was happening. She was in a relaxed, pleasing trance. 

"Laurie, stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Please..!" Helly shouted out for his good friend, this mixed alongside the screaming and irruption of pounds from Duardy's screen was making the room involuntarily loud to deal with. The blue-nette turned back with a joyous smile, the noises within the call dying down over a while.

Her screen glitches again, and then again, and next Laurel is shown hanging from the ceiling, from the view of it clawing at the tied rope with a small struggle. Her feet kicked over and smacked her laptop, possibly knocking it from atop the bed. Her web-cam glitched visibly, the sounds of a blue-screen almost coming through before it simply stayed like that, no longer displaying the unsettling view and her username disappearing from the skype in that instant.

From the glance of it before the entirety of the camera messed up, it appeared similar to a shadowy, blurry figure was holding her neck, or perhaps it was only Edd's imagination making things worsen.

Everyone simply stares at where her camera used to be, bawlful sobbing filling up the silence of the call, most of it being from Hellucard and Duard. Eddie's face turned to gaze at Eduardo, only imagining the types of things going through his mind as the spanish male didn't hold much back anymore. Cursing at everything, knocking his halfway-drunken diet cola off the top of his desk, he couldn't handle this anymore, and the brunette knew it.

**Red: oOOPS  
**

**Red: think Laurel left you hanging, there.**

That was the kicker, as Eduardo immediately stood up from his seating position as his eye slightly twitched as he glanced at the two latest messages from Red. "That's-fucking-it, I'm gonna see her." He vaguely notes, glaring at the disastrous anon.

"See her, how?" Tom strongly answers back, the stress obviously getting to him plus the knowledge that nobody was safe from this supernatural being's wrath. "Red would _kill_ you, too." Eduardo groaned before arguing.

"I'm gonna go to her house, and _not_ leave her up there like some god-damn ragdoll..!" He quickly explained, his fists gradually clenching with every word he spoken. "She deserves...deserved, better than that." His voice lowers, Jon weeping silently to himself as he couldn't face the camera anymore.

**Red: you can see her a lot faster if you hang up.**

"Oh, you heartless piece of shit." Matthew, surprisingly and unsurprisingly, retorted as he glared at the message himself. 

Paul sighed a little, focusing on Eduardo's camera as he attempted to calm down the male in which, realistically, would of been hard to do if one were in his shoes. "Duard, you want justice for Laurie, right?" He rhetorically asked. Eduardo sighed heavily, slowly sliding himself back down on his chair. "..Yes, of course I'd..Yeah." He confirmed.

"Then, please don't screw yourself up trying to do it." Paul sternly replied, before continuing on. "..Don't know what Laurie would of wanted, or her too much personally, but." He paused slightly, "If she loved you, she wouldn't want you to die, either." 

The male laid out a good point, however, Eduardo had fallen silent afterwards, his own way of peacefully complying, or admitting he had no other choice. Truly, no one could blame Eduardo for his impulsive rush to action, it was only natural for a guy that witnessed both his friend's and ex-girlfriend's death before his own eyes. With that, it was back to business again, and the tension kept building up.

Eddie had already sended a request over towards Yuu's username immediately, growing increasingly anxious by both the possibilities along with this and the situation itself. Before long, "sunflowersoldier", agreed to the call and appeared on-screen.

The spiky-haired blonde gazed around at the room, a little uncomfortable by the stares and the other's glares. He rose a hand and waved a little bit, awkwardly snickering as that was his poor attempt to keep attention off himself. "Wow, uh, this is...Quite the party." He says, not recognizing the irony since he's been here for two minutes straight.

"Tell us what you know, Yuu." Eddie started, not buying this false sense of innocence vibe the blonde was giving off, and Yuu raised his hands in defense.  
"Know? What the- know what?"

"Incase you need to be informed, two people are dead, one guy missing, and we know you were at that party." Paul briefly explains.

Yuu visually cringes, and it's hard to tell whether this meant ill intention or if he was honest. "Dead? Missing? A party-shit, those words do not mix." He remarks, before glancing towards Tom's camera. "..Waitaminute—You're..That Thomas guy..?" He revealed. Tom nodded a little.

  
"..Yeah, it's coming in blanks, but, you were there after I socked that guy." 

"Ah, yeah," Yuu chuckled a little again, remembering back. "You were so drunk then I was scared you didn't have supervision, so I tried to lead you back." He mumbled, tone filled with nostalgia.

"Who gives a shit.." Duard inaudibly murmured, rolling his eyes a little. "Did you post the video or not'..!?" He queried.

Yuu sighed heavily, and it seemed like without information necessary the blonde didn't need any to know what video Eduardo was referring to. Unfortunately, the male shook his head, and then explained himself. "If. if this is about Larder. I have zero clue who filmed that freaky shit, and it sure as hell wasn't me," He mentioned, "..All I did was save a guy from his hang-over, that's all."

The ginger was previously fiddling with his hair out of habit, before cursing to himself and glaring. "This is B.S! We can bring as many people in here if we want, and they'll say the same stuff!" He vented out of anger.

Meanwhile, Helly's body lightly shuddered with fear and anticipation. "It's like . . . Every man for himself." Hellucard commented lowly, although the way he did so made everyone else uneasy. "Like, we can suddenly not trust the people we've known for ages . . . And ages. Knowing somehow, those people are gonna die." He paused, not saying anymore. Nobody knew where that came from.

The canadian turned to face Eddie's camera, whose expression was lost in thought and anxiety, and pain that he somewhat wished he could take away from him, and from everyone else's.

"I'm scared . . ." Jon muttered, understandably so, perhaps unintentionally enhanced by Hellucard's uncomfortable words.

"Can people stop talking and look at their facebook for a minute..!?" Matthew frantically sputters out of his mouth, running a hand through his hair. To no surprise, people begun to do so, but there was something that did come with surprise.

Tord Larder made a new post after a whole year. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I make Matt show his ginger grump for this chapter and I'm not ashamed of it. huehuehue_
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> I'd say spot the reference in Red, but it's so obvious it's pitiful.
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> Blame Digital_Night_Sky for how fast this chapter arrived folks, and check their works out too, they're cool tbh.


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